Thais sweep badminton golds (pic)

FIRED up by the crowd support and the surprise appearance of family members, Thailand’s shuttlers swept both the boys and girls’ badminton titles at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Thursday evening.

Pisit Poodchalat and Sapsiree Taerattanachai, both 18, dished out tigerish attacking displays to deliver an unlikely double for their country. For Pisit, it was the vocal encouragement of the 4,000 fans who turned up that give him the edge over India’s Haseena Sunil Prannoy in the boys’ final.

‘My win over the Chinese player (Huang Yuxiang) in the quarter-final gave me the confidence to win, but it was the fans that made the difference,’ he said, folllowing his 21-15, 21-16 triumph.

His compatriot Sapsiree also traced her success to the support in the stands, after her 21-14, 21-17 victory over the Chinese favourite Deng Xuan.

The bronze medal for the boys’ event went to South Korean Kang Ji Wook on a walkover, after his Malaysian opponent Low Wei Sheng failed to recover from a sprained ankle.